About Coach Tested

Coach Tested is written for the people who actually have to run the season — the coach holding a clipboard with parents watching, and the parents trying to work out how to best guide their kids on and off the court.

It covers volleyball and softball: rotation systems, practice structure, player development, tournament logistics, and the equipment decisions families and programs have to justify.

Who writes it

I’m Bonnie. I coach club volleyball in Alabama, I’ve been doing it for six years at the rec and club levels, and I currently coach a 13s team.

I played softball as a youth for 10 years, I’ve been a softball parent for 7, and I coached rec softball for a few seasons. So I’ve played the game, run a few practices, and spent a lot of seasons in those bleachers watching other people coach. What I’m not is a club softball coach — when I write about travel ball, that’s the limit of what I’m claiming.

A coach and a parent see completely different things. I know because I am both.

The rule about gear

I will never tell you I’ve tested something I haven’t.

Every article that recommends equipment says plainly which items have actually been used — in a gym, on a field, in a bag all season — and which are assessed on specifications, retailer data, and known trade-offs. Those are different claims and they get labelled differently.

Most sites in this space don’t do that, and it’s the main reason to trust anything here. A recommendation that says “I haven’t used this one, but here’s what the specs tell you and here’s what usually goes wrong with this type” is worth more than a confident review of something nobody opened.

What this site is trying to be

Specific rather than comprehensive. Most youth sports advice fails by being technically correct but useless — it describes the system a well-resourced team would run, not the one you can install with nine kids, two hours a week, and a gym you share.

So the articles here try to:

• Answer the question in the first two sentences. You’re reading on a phone between matches.
• Name the disagreement when coaches genuinely disagree, instead of flattening it into one confident answer.
• Say what something costs you, not only what it gives you.
• Verify rules against the actual rulebook — USA Volleyball, NFHS, NCAA, USA Softball — rather than repeating what the internet says. The rulebooks disagree with each other sometimes, and they change.

When I get something wrong, I fix it.

Getting in touch

Questions, corrections, and “you’re wrong about this and here’s why” are all welcome — corrections especially. hello@coachtested.com, or see the contact page.

If you want to know how the site makes money, that’s on the affiliate disclosure page, in plain language.